CANNABIZ
A POTENTIAL EARTHQUAKE FOR THE MARIJUANA INDUSTRY LAWSUIT CHALLENGES LEGISLATURE’S ABILITY TO AMEND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. BY GRIFFIN COOP
B
ongs and pre-rolled joints could find their way to dispensary shelves pending the outcome of a lawsuit challenging the state legislature’s power to change the state constitution. Since 2016, when Arkansas voters approved medical marijuana at the polls, the state legislature has voted to change the amendment 27 times. But those changes could be ruled null and void pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed earlier this year in Pulaski County. The suit, filed by Good Day Farm Arkansas LLC and Capital City Medicinals LLC, could void the restrictions the legislature placed on such things as advertising by cultivators and dispensaries, telehealth for prospective consumers and the sale of prerolled joints, which the legislature prohibited in 2017. “If the Good Day lawsuit is upheld, it will radically change the rules that the medical marijuana industry currently operates under,” said Bill Paschall, who runs the Arkansas Cannabis Industry Association. “So, it’ll be a bit of an earthquake in the industry.”
60 JUNE 2022
ARKANSAS TIMES
If Good Day Farm is victorious, Amendment 98 will revert back to its original form, meaning the legislature’s changes to it will be null and void, as if they never happened, according to Joshua Silverstein, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. Rules made by the Alcohol Beverage Control Administration to regulate the industry could be voided as well if any of those rules were based on changes the legislature made to the original amendment, Silverstein said. The case could take a few months at the trial court level where it is in the hands of Circuit Judge Mackie Pierce. Given how much is at stake, Silverstein said he expects the losing side to appeal, which would take several more months. Good Day Farm Arkansas LLC, which is a major force in the Arkansas medical marijuana industry, owns a cultivation facility in Pine Bluff. Capital City Medicinals is the legal name of the dispensary better known as Berner’s by Good Day Farm in Little Rock. Good Day Farm also manages dispensaries in Van Buren and Texarkana.
Defendants in the case are the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration and the state of Arkansas. AMENDING AMENDMENTS Good Day Farm argues in the suit that the state constitution prohibits the legislature from amending the constitution on its own without a vote of the people. “Amendments to the Arkansas Constitution require a vote of the people because the people have reserved that power to themselves and not delegated it to the General Assembly,” the lawsuit states. Amendment 7 to the state constitution, which covers initiatives and referendums, states that measures can only be amended by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly. Elsewhere in the amendment, a “measure” is defined as a “bill, law, resolution, ordinance, charter, constitutional amendment, or legislative proposal of any character.” So, that means the state legislature can change amendments by a two-thirds vote, right?
